Supafest 2011 | Australia | Review | Pics

Sydney’s ANZ Stadium was host to thirteen of the world’s largest urban music acts. Snoop Dogg, Nelly, T-Pain and Keri Hilson were among the top-notch entertainment that graced the stage at Supafest 2011, which was the first stop of the four-city tour also visiting Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Of the day’s entertainment arguably the most popular upset of the day was the set by Nelly. His performance was a crowd-pleasing combination of his greatest hits from more than a decade including “E.I.,” “Batter Up” and “Air Force Ones.” However, what really whipped the Aussies into frenzy was his performance of the AC/DC classics “Shook Me All Night Long” and “Thunderstruck,” which scored massive popularity points with the festival goers. He also won over the hearts of the crowd by taking three fans up onto the stage for a Zoolander-ish fashion runway walk off, a brief serenade and a “Flap Your Wings/Hot In Here” mash-up performance with the three lucky girls.

If Nelly was arguably the most popular performance of the day, then the most grandiose by far was none other than the Doggfather, Snoop Dogg. “Why so grand?” I hear you ask. Well, because of many things, not the least of which was his entrance to the stage, which was a combination of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna” and images from gangster style cinematic triumphs such as Scarface. D-O-Double-Gizzle’s set was the last performance of the day, which came with its drawbacks, such as the crowd’s waning attention span and energy level, especially during “Murder Was the Case.” But Snoop’s performance did not waver even during a brief exodus in the second half, bringing the crowd around with a rendition of House Of Pain’s “Jump Around,” then “Beautiful,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and live collaborations with T-Pain and Bow Wow in the form of “Boom” and “Bow Wow (That’s My Name),” respectively.

Another honorable mention goes to T-Pain with his jovial rapport with the crowd and sometimes-controversial brand of “Hard & B” style music because of his use of the auto-tune technique of voice correction. T-Pain performed “All I Do Is Win,” a live preview of his new “Booty Work,” and the Chris Brown collaboration “Best New Love Song.” T-Pain finished off his energy packed, dancey performance with two positive messages: Do whatever you dream and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t AND listen to two people in your life - yourself and “your mama.” He phrased it slightly different, but the core message holds. Finishing on a high note, he also recommended that while you are chasing your dreams make “All The Above” your theme song while you’re at it.

Of course, there were other artists there on the day that did a fantastic job as well including local urban acts Israel and Miracle as well as better known international urban artists Bow Wow, Busta Rhymes, Game, Keri Hilson, Ciara, Fat Joe and Taio Cruz. Unfortunately, a somewhat dishonorable mention goes to Timbaland for (once again) disappointing Australian fans by cancelling last minute for reasons still unknown. Having said that, he might have missed his flight, but that is unlikely as “Timbaland ain't gotta run nowhere, baby. Timbaland got private planes.”